Ex-Chief of Staff: Sorry for Mandelson 04/28 06:20

   

   LONDON (AP) -- The former chief of staff to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer 
acknowledged Tuesday that he made a "serious mistake" by recommending Peter 
Mandelson be made British ambassador to the United States, but denied 
pressuring officials to ignore security concerns.

   Morgan McSweeney told lawmakers on the House of Commons Foreign Affairs 
Committee that it had been "a serious error of judgment" to back Mandelson, 
whose ill-fated appointment has left Starmer fighting for his job. The 
committee is investigating how Mandelson, a scandal-tainted friend of Jeffrey 
Epstein, was given the key diplomatic job despite failing security checks.

   The House of Commons is set to vote later on whether Starmer should be 
investigated by a parliamentary standards watchdog with the power to censure or 
suspend him.

   McSweeney said that "the prime minister relied on my advice, and I got it 
wrong." He apologized to Epstein's victims, saying "I am sorry for any part 
this controversy has played in causing further hurt or distress."

   But he insisted that he didn't "ask officials to ignore procedures, request 
that steps should be skipped, or communicate explicitly or implicitly that 
checks should be cleared at all costs."

   Starmer fired Mandelson in September after new details emerged about the 
ambassador's friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in 
prison in 2019.

   Police opened an investigation into Mandelson in February over allegations 
that he passed on sensitive government information to Epstein when he was a 
member of the U.K. government in 2009. He denies wrongdoing and hasn't been 
charged.

   Starmer's former top aide says sorry

   McSweeney resigned in February, saying he took responsibility for appointing 
Mandelson as ambassador. He is widely regarded as a protg of Mandelson, 
though he said that "I didn't think of him as my mentor."

   He denied allegations by Olly Robbins, the former top civil servant at the 
Foreign Office, that Starmer's staff pressured officials to rush through the 
confirmation so that Mandelson could be in the post at the start of the second 
term of U.S. President Donald Trump in January 2025.

   McSweeney said that he felt Mandelson's experience as a former European 
Union trade commissioner would serve the U.K. well in striking a free trade 
deal with the Trump administration.

   "I don't think the prime minister would have chosen Mandelson, if Kamala 
Harris had been elected president," he said.

   He said that at the time of the appointment, he had the impression that 
Mandelson's relationship with Epstein was "a passing acquaintance." When emails 
were published showing the friendship was close, "it was a knife through my 
soul," McSweeney said.

   Starmer fired Robbins earlier this month after the revelation that Mandelson 
was approved for the job against the recommendation of the government's 
security vetting agency. Starmer has called it "staggering" that Foreign Office 
officials failed to tell him about the security concerns.

   Robbins has said that the concerns didn't relate to Epstein, though he 
hasn't disclosed what they were about.

   Robbins' predecessor, Philip Barton, told the same committee that he was 
concerned that Mandelson's known links to "toxic, hot potato" Epstein "could 
become a problem."

   But he said that he wasn't consulted on the "political decision" to appoint 
Mandelson. It's rare but not unknown for U.K. ambassadors to be political 
appointees rather than career diplomats.

   "I was presented with a decision and told to get on with it," said Barton, 
who left his job for unrelated reasons in January 2025.

   "There was pressure to get everything done as quickly as possible," he said, 
but denied there was pressure for a specific outcome.

   Ian Collard, the senior security official who briefed Robbins on the 
security checks, told the committee in a written statement that there was 
"pressure to deliver a rapid outcome," though he said that it didn't affect his 
judgment.

   Starmer has denied that anyone in his office put pressure on the civil 
service.

   Opposition hopes to force an inquiry

   Critics say Starmer's decision to appoint Mandelson is evidence of bad 
judgment by a prime minister who has made repeated missteps since he led the 
center-left Labour Party to a landslide election victory in July 2024.

   Starmer already defused one potential crisis in February, when some Labour 
lawmakers urged him to quit over the Mandelson appointment. He could face a new 
challenge if, as expected, Labour takes a hammering in May 7 local and regional 
elections, which give voters a chance to pass a midterm verdict on the 
government.

   Later Tuesday, the House of Commons will vote on a demand by the opposition 
Conservative Party for Parliament's Privileges Committee to investigate 
Starmer's explanations of how Mandelson came to be appointed.

   Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said that Starmer had "misled the House of 
Commons repeatedly" when he said that "full due process" was followed over 
Mandelson's appointment.

   A finding by the committee that Starmer misled Parliament would likely be a 
resigning offense.

   It would require a large number of Labour lawmakers to vote with the 
opposition on Tuesday for Starmer to be referred to the Privileges Committee, 
which has the power to suspend lawmakers, including the prime minister, from 
Parliament, for breaches of the rules.

   Starmer urged Labour lawmakers to "stick together" and vote against the 
motion, calling it a "stunt" timed to damage the government before the May 
elections.

   Censure by the committee exerts considerable moral pressure on politicians 
to resign. Its investigation into lockdown-breaking gatherings in government 
offices during the COVID-19 pandemic helped end the political career of former 
Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

   Johnson quit as a lawmaker in 2023 after the committee found that he had 
repeatedly misled Parliament over the "Partygate" scandal.